Pune to roll out turner for second Test, with India looking to level series

A bald and slow turning pitch is in the making for the second India vs New Zealand Test, starting on Thursday in Pune. ESPNcricinfo has learned that the pitch, predominantly packed with black soil, will have lower bounce compared to the first Test in Bengaluru, and will be flatter and slower.

Shaken by the Bengaluru setback, where India registered their lowest Test score at home – 46 all out in the first innings – Rohit Sharma’s team is under pressure to make it 2-1 in the three-match series to stay ahead in the race to make the World Test Championship final next June. The broad plan for the pitches in both Pune and Mumbai, where the final Test will be played from November 1, will be similar: more turn, thus allowing the Indian spinners to dominate.

The one key difference between Pune and Mumbai, though, will be the bounce, due to the differences in the soil: black at Pune’s Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, and red at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.

It was meant to be similar in Bengaluru too, but overcast conditions coupled with intermittent rains, leading into and on the first two days, made the pitch at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium favourable for seamers, which New Zealand’s fast men used to their advantage once Rohit elected to bat.

But like in Bengaluru, in Pune, too, India will look to field at least three spinners, though the combination could be altered keeping in mind the amount of spin that can be extracted from the slow surface. On Sunday, in a curious move, the Indian selectors decided to add Washington Sundar as the 16th member of the squad, although the original squad had Axar Patel as a fourth spinner along with R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav, who played the first Test.

This will only be the third Test played at Pune’s MCA stadium. The inaugural Test there was the first of the 2016-17 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which Australia had won by an emphatic 333-run margin, with the match getting over by tea on the third day, as left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe starred with 12 wickets. The surface was abrasive, and the top soil was loose, with multiple small cracks peeling off on the first day itself. The pitch was rated poor by ICC match referee Chris Broad, as spinners accounted for 31 of the 40 wickets to fall. The next Test at the venue was in 2019, when Virat Kohli hit a double-century in an innings victory over South Africa.

The pitch against New Zealand is expected to be virtually devoid of grass. It is understood that while the seam movement is likely to be minimal outside of the first hour after the toss, the dry surface will support reverse swing. With the slowness of the surface and the lack of support for fast men, the toss once again becomes vital, with teams likely to want to bat first.